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BIBLE  STUDY 
THE  GREAT  WAY 
INTO  LIFE’S  VALUES 


HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

President  of  Oberlin  College 


NINETEEN  HUNDRED  NINE 
YOUNG  MEN’S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATION  PRESS 
NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1 909,  by  the  International  Committee 
of  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 


Life’s  Values  Realized  Through 
Bible  Study 

JS  the  insistent  demand  for  Bible 
study  justified  ?  If  it  is,  we  ought 
to  be  able  to  see  that  Bible  study 
has  a  broad,  philosophical  basis, 
that  it  is  knit  up  with  the  great 
values  of  life,  that  the  biblical  way 
is  the  great  way  into  life’s  values; 
that,  in  fact,  there  is  no  way  so  cer¬ 
tain  to  the  largest  life. 

For  the  age  in  which  we  live, 
though  it  is  not  an  irreligious  age, 
is  a  realistic  age,  an  age  with  a 
passion  for  reality,  for  real  life. 
The  feeling  of  our  time  is  rightly 
voiced  in  Tennyson’s  lines: 

“’Tis  life  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
More  life  and  fuller  that  I  want.” 

The  desire  for  life  is  not  only  the 


3 


4  A  TEST  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

desire  of  our  time,  but  is  also  the 
point  of  Christ’s  own  challenge; 
he  comes  that  men  may  have  life, 
and  that  they  may  have  it  abun¬ 
dantly.  Christianity  has,  therefore, 
no  need  to  shrink  from  this  test. 
It  fully  believes,  as  MacDonald 
said,  that  religion  is  life,  and  not 
merely  the  food  or  the  medicine  or 
the  adornment  of  life.  And  it  is  so 
insistent  upon  Bible  study  just  be¬ 
cause  it  believes  it  to  be  the  best  of 
all  ways  to  the  largest  life.  Is 
religion  life  ?  and  is  Bible  study 
such  a  preeminent  way  to  life  ? 
If  it  is  not  so,  we  cannot  afford  it 
the  time  demanded;  if  it  is  so,  we 
need  to  know  and  to  heed  it. 


I 

We  shall  readily  grant,  in  the 


THINGS  THAT  SATISFY  $ 

first  place,  that  the  great  values  of 
life — what  is  really  worth  while- 
must  involve  the  achievement  of 
character,  of  influence,  and  of  hap¬ 
piness,  and  no  one  can  come  into 
the  largest  life  without  achieve¬ 
ment  along  all  these  lines.  To  be 
what  one  ought,  to  count  as  one 
can,  to  enjoy  what  one  may — this 
is  really  worth  while;  and  any  way 
of  life  must  show  us  the  way  to 
these  basic  values. 

For  satisfying  life  looks,  in  the 
first  place,  to  character.  We  may 
not  forget  Thomas  Arnold’s  words 
to  the  boys  of  Rugby,  “The  only 
thing  of  moment  in  life  or  in  man  is 
character”;  or,  as  another  has  put 
it,  “The  great  soul  will  be  strong  to 
live  as  well  as  to  think.”  No  life 
can  come  to  its  best  into  which  there 


6  A  FOUR-SQUARE  HAPPINESS 

has  not  been  built  mighty  convic¬ 
tions,  mighty  decisions  and  the  in¬ 
spiration  of  great  ideals  and  hopes. 

Nor  can  the  genuine  man  be 
satisfied  without  influence ,  without 
counting  effectively  for  good  in  the 
lives  of  others.  He  must  demand 
from  himself  social  efficiency,  must 
be  sure  that  he  can  be  counted  a 
part  of  that  leaven  that  is  to  leaven 
the  world's  life,  of  that  “good 
seed”  which  is  the  children  of  the 
Kingdom. 

And  the  man  who  means  really  to 
live  has  a  right  to  expect  a  deep  and 
abiding  peace  and  happiness  that 
are  something  more  than  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  the  senses,  a  happiness  that 
can  stand  four-square  to  all  the 
facts  of  life.  In  comparing  one  of 
the  madonnas  of  Correggio  at  the 


THE  CALM  OF  ETERNITY  7 

Dresden  Gallery  with  the  great 
Sistine  madonna  of  Raphael  in  the 
same  gallery,  Kedney  says  that 
while  each  is  a  masterpiece  in  its 
own  line,  the  loveliness  of  Cor- 
reggio's  picture  is  that  of  a  domestic 
felicity  which  seems  capable  of 
abiding  only  so  long  as  the  world 
is  shut  out  and  its  dark  facts  for¬ 
gotten,  while  the  suffused  calm  of 
the  Sistine  madonna  and  child  is  to 
be  read  in  the  eyes  of  both,  that  do 
not  forget  the  world,  but  look  out 
with  assurance  into  the  eternities 
of  God.  A  basic  happiness  like 
that  must  belong  to  the  man  who 
means  really  to  live.  The  message 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  a  word  of  good 
news,  the  best  that  could  ever  be 
brought  to  needy  men;  it  means 


8  PERSONAL  ASSOCIATION 

happiness,  as  well  as  character  and 
influence. 


II 

And  if  one  asks,  in  the  second 
place,  what  the  great  means  to 
character,  and  influence,  and  happi¬ 
ness  are,  there  seems  no  doubt  that 
one  must  answer — Personal  asso¬ 
ciation  with  significant  lives,  and 
some  sharing  in  their  best  vision. 
There  are  no  other  means  for  a 
moment  comparable  with  these  for 
the  achievement  of  either  character, 
or  influence,  or  happiness.  Even 
Kant,  abstract  philosopher  as  he 
was,  knew  that  the  great  road  to 
character  was  by  the  living  exam¬ 
ple.  Fichte  caught  up  the  message 
from  Kant  and  rang  it  out  over  the 
heads  of  the  students  of  the  Univer- 


THE  LIVING  EXAMPLE  9 

sity  of  Erlangen  in  his  great  ad¬ 
dresses  on  “The  Vocation  of  Man” 
and  “The  Nature  of  the  Scholar,” 
with  their  great  conception  of  the 
scholar  as  the  embodiment  of  the 
“Divine  Idea,”  who  must  power¬ 
fully  touch  the  lives  of  others.  And 
Carlyle  caught  it  up  from  Fichte 
in  his  “Sartor  Resartus,”  and 
George  Eliot  from  Carlyle;  and 
perhaps  no  one  has  given  it  finer 
expression  than  she,  when  she  says: 
“Ideas  are  often  poor  ghosts;  our 
sun-filled  eyes  cannot  discern  them 
— they  pass  athwart  us  in  their 
vapor,  and  cannot  make  themselves 
felt.  But  sometimes  they  are  made 
flesh;  they  breathe  upon  us  with 
warm  breath,  they  touch  us  with 
soft,  responsive  hands,  they  look 
at  us  with  sad,  sincere  eyes,  and 


SUPREME  SERVICE 


jo 

speak  to  us  in  appealing  tones; 
they  are  clothed  in  a  living  human 
soul,  with  all  its  conflicts,  its  faith, 
and  its  love.  Then  their  presence 
is  a  power,  then  they  shake  us  like 
a  passion,  and  we  are  drawn  after 
them  with  gentle  compulsion,  as 
flame  is  drawn  to  flame.” 

In  fact,  when  one  stops  to  think 
about  it,  one  sees  there  are  only  two 
services  of  supreme  value  that  it 
seems  possible  for  any  man  to  do 
for  another:  he  may  lay  upon  that 
other  the  impress  of  a  high  and 
noble  character,  and  he  may  share 
with  him  his  own  best  vision.  Be¬ 
yond  these  there  is  no  service  of 
supreme  value  that  he  can  render. 
And  these  two  services  are  our 
supreme  need  from  others’  lives, 
and  our  own  greatest  task  in  life. 


SIGNIFICANT  PERSONALITIES  is 

The  great  road  to  character,  and 
influence,  and  happiness  is  the  con¬ 
tagion  of  great  lives  and  the  sharing 
in  their  visions. 


Ill 

It  follows,  in  the  third  place,  that 
the  greatest  conceivable  need  for  our¬ 
selves  or  for  others  is  high  and 
significant  personalities ,  and  the 
chance  of  sharing  in  their  effective 
witness  to  those  great  interests  and 
personalities  by  which  they  live. 
And  the  significant  personalities 
that  above  all  else  we  need  are 
those  that  are  marked  by  great  con¬ 
victions  and  great  decisions,  and 
are  inspired  by  great  ideals  and 
hopes.  It  is  the  touch  of  such  lives 
that  we  need  most  of  all;  nothing 
else  can  so  surely  bring  us  into  the 


li  THE  EFFECTIVE  WITNESS 

largeness  of  life.  But  the  degree  in 
which  we  can  enter  into  the  large¬ 
ness  of  their  vision  will  depend  in 
no  small  part  upon  the  effectiveness 
of  their  own  witness.  And  all  men 
need  effective  witness  from  other 
men  as  to  those  values  and  person¬ 
alities  by  which  they  live.  What 
are  the  qualities  required  in  such 
an  effective  witness  ?  If  the  service 
rendered  at  this  point  is  supreme, 
as  I  believe  it  to  be,  it  is  worth  while 
to  make  clear  to  ourselves  exactly 
what  the  qualities  of  the  effective 
witness  must  be. 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  they  are  four: 
first,  conviction;  second,  character 
and  judgment  in  the  sphere  in 
which  one  bears  witness;  third,  dis¬ 
interested  love;  and,  fourth,  power 
to  put  one’s  witness  home. 


THE  ELOQUENCE  OF  CHARACTER  13 

First  of  all,  that  witness  counts 
most  with  us  who  speaks  mani¬ 
festly  out  of  profound  conviction  of 
his  own.  This  conviction  of  his 

* 

goes  further  with  us  than  the  very 
reasons  that  he  urges  on  its  behalf. 

And  the  second  quality  of  the 
effective  witness  indicates  how  im¬ 
possible  it  is  to  separate  power  in 
service  from  power  of  personality. 
For,  in  the  last  analysis,  weighing 
testimony  is  weighing  witnesses, 
and  no  man  is  finally  going  to  count 
powerfully  with  us  in  whose  charac¬ 
ter  we  cannot  have  confidence,  and 
whose  judgment  we  cannot  trust. 
A  few  words  from  the  man  of 
character  and  judgment  will  go 
further  than  much  eloquence  from 
a  man  in  whose  character  we  do  not 


14  THE  UNFAILING  LIGHT 

believe,  and  whose  judgment  we  do 
not  trust. 

And  the  effective  witness,  in  the 
third  place,  must  speak  with  evi¬ 
dent  disinterestedness.  It  must  be 
plain  that  he  has  no  merely  private 
interest  to  serve,  no  selfish  scheme 
of  his  own  to  further,  but  that  in 
the  witness  he  bears  he  genuinely 
seeks  the  good  of  those  to  whom  he 
speaks.  Back  of  all  witness  of 
words,  thus,  must  lie,  above  all,  the 
witness  of  the  life  of  conviction,  of 
character  and  judgment,  of  disin¬ 
terested  love. 

And  the  witness  of  such  men  can¬ 
not  well  fail,  though  their  power  of 
speech  is  small  indeed.  And  yet, 
the  fourth  element  of  the  effective 
witness  is  not  without  importance. 
A  man  may  add  greatly  to  his 


POWER  IN  TESTIMONY  15 

effectiveness  for  good  because  he 
has  power  to  put  his  witness  home. 
And  that,  it  may  perhaps  be  said, 
means  exactly  three  things — power 
to  make  his  testimony  to  the  cause  or 
person  or  interest  of  which  he 
speaks  real ,  rational ,  and  vital . 

It  sometimes  seems  to  me  that  the 
Christian  witness  particularly  needs 
to  have  these  three  demands  con¬ 
tinually  in  mind.  It  is  his  business, 
above  all,  to  make  Christ  and  the 
things  of  the  spirit  real  to  men,  able 
to  take  their  place  among  the 
steadfast  realities  of  their  life; 
rational ,  with  steadfast  appeal  to 
their  best  reason,  knit  up  with  the 
very  best  thinking  that  they  are  able 
to  do  in  any  line;  and  vital ,  drawn 
from  life,  with  motives  for  life, 
translatable  continuously  into  life. 


1 6  OUR  GREATEST  NEEDS 

These,  then,  it  seems  to  me,  are 
our  greatest  needs:  the  contagion  of 
high  and  significant  personalities — 
that  is,  personalities  character¬ 
ized  by  great  convictions,  de¬ 
cisions,  ideals,  and  hopes — and 
the  opportunity  of  sharing  in  their 
effective  witness,  a  witness  that 
grows  out  of  conviction,  character 
and  judgment,  and  disinterested 
love,  and  that  is  so  brought  home  as 
to  be  made  to  us  real,  rational,  and 
vital.  It  is  no  accident,  therefore, 
that  the  program  of  Christianity 
should  be,  as  my  colleague,  Professor 
Bosworth,  has  said,  the  conquest 
of  the  world  by  a  campaign  of  tes¬ 
timony,  through  empowered  wit¬ 
nesses.  For  this  is  the  way  by 
which  we  come  into  all  the  great 
values  of  life.  It  could  not  fail  to 


THE  MISSION  OF  THE  BIBLE  17 

be  the  way  into  the  supreme  values 
of  life,  brought  by  the  highest  of  all 
religions. 

IV 

Just  here,  then,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  to  be  found  the  basic  reason  for 
the  preeminent  importance  of  Bible 
study.  The  great  mission  and 
priceless  value  of  the  Bible  are  that 
it  puts  us  in  touch  with  the  most 
significant  lives  of  the  world,  in  the 
greatest  realm,  that  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual — the  lives  that  we 
need  most  of  all,  because  religion 
is  the  great  unlocker  of  the  powers 
of  men.  Here,  thus,  in  the  Bible, 
we  have  the  opportunity  of  staying 
in  the  presence  of  the  best.  If 
Kaftan  was  right  in  saying  that  our 
chief  task  is  to  enter  with  appre- 


1 8  significance  of  history 

ciative  understanding  into  the  great 
personalities  of  history,  then  our 
greatest  task  is  to  be  able  so  to  enter 
into  the  lives  embodied  in  this 
record  of  revelation.  The  Bible 
has,  in  other  words,  a  supreme  place 
just  because  it  does  put  us  in  touch 
with  the  most  significant  person - 
alities  of  history — the  great  line  of 
the  prophets,  culminating  in  Christ; 
and  because  it  contains  the  most 
effective  witness  to  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  values  that  the  world  knows. 

Where  else  shall  one  turn  to  find 
a  line  of  personalities  so  grounded 
in  the  greatest  convictions  that  men 
can  have,  so  embodying  the  mighty 
decisions  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
life,  so  moved  by  the  highest  ideals 
and  inspired  with  the  largest  hopes  ? 
Here  lies  the  inestimable  value  of 


THE  LIVING  RECORD  19 

the  modern  historical  study  of  the 
Bible.  For  it  enables  us,  as  never 
before,  to  enter  with  intelligent 
sympathy  into  the  personal  lives  of 
the  Bible  record,  to  find  them  liv¬ 
ing  persons.  To  a  degree  true  of 
no  preceding  generation,  this  gener¬ 
ation  is  able  to  enter  into  the  actual 
situation,  for  example,  of  the  proph¬ 
ets,  to  see  their  problem,  their 
life  task,  and  the  message  that 
it  was  given  them  to  utter;  and 
their  greatness  so  comes  home  to 
us  as  never  before.  So  the  free  critic 
Cornill  can  say  of  Amos,  “Amos 
is  one  of  the  most  marvelous  and 
incomprehensible  figures  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  human  mind,  the  pioneer 
of  a  process  of  evolution  from  which 
a  new  epoch  of  humanity  dates.” 
And  Hosea  he  counts  “among 


N  ao  WHERE  ELSE? 

the  greatest  religious  geniuses  which 
the  world  has  ever  produced”; 
and  he  says  of  Isaiah,  “In  Isaiah 
we  find  for  the  first  time  a  clearly 
grasped  conception  of  universal 
history.”  It  is  into  the  presence  of 
such  personalities  that  the  modern 
historical  study  of  the  Bible  in¬ 
troduces  us.  To  a  degree  never 
before  true,  the  Bible  lives  for  us; 
of  it  we  may  well  use  Lowell’s 
phrase,  and  say  that  it  is  “rammed 
with  life.”  One  cannot  put  the 
point  of  a  needle  into  it  anywhere 
without  drawing  blood. 

Where  else,  too,  shall  one  turn 
for  such  effective  witness  to  moral 
and  spiritual  values  ?  Where  else 
are  the  personalities  to  be  found 
who  speak  as  those  who  have  seen 
the  verities  of  the  moral  and  spirit- 


OURSELVES  WRIT  LARGE  ai 

ual  world,  whose  message  comes 
out  of  such  conviction,  such  char¬ 
acter  and  judgment,  with  such 
manifest  disinterestedness  of  love  ? 
Who  else  have  power  to  make  the 
things  of  the  spirit  so  real,  so 
rational,  so  vital  ?  These  person¬ 
alities  of  the  Scripture  are  truly 
the  moral  and  religious  leaders  of 
the  race. 

As  the  record  of  the  preeminent 
meetings  of  the  men  of  the  ancient 
time  with  God,  even  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  gives  us  what  else  we  could 
not  have,  a  genetic  understanding 
of  Christianity ,  and  the  transcript 
of  our  own  individual  experience 
writ  large.  This  generation  can 
least  of  all  spare  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment;  for  college  students  are 
studying  almost  every  subject  they 


%l  SHARING  IN  THE  RACE-LIFE 

take  up  by  the  biological  method. 
The  great  concept  of  evolution  in 
its  larger  sense  is  a  dominant  one, 
and  the  students  of  our  time  are 
trying  to  understand  their  sub¬ 
jects  genetically.  It  would  hardly 
be  possible  to  satisfy  this  genera¬ 
tion  without  such  a  genetic  under¬ 
standing  of  Christianity,  and  that 
genetic  understanding  requires  a 
study  of  the  Old  Testament.  So 
strongly  do  we  feel  this  that  the 
modern  man  would  be  almost 
tempted  to  reproduce  out  of  his 
imagination  the  record  of  such  a 
preceding  growth,  if  we  did  not 
have  it  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the 
same  way  we  are  trying  to  under¬ 
stand  our  individual  lives  in  the 
light  of  the  record  of  the  race;  and 
in  this  aspect,  too,  the  Old  Testa- 


THE  PRESENCE  OF  CHRIST  *3 

ment  has  for  us  profound  signifi¬ 
cance  as  a  record  of  a  race-expe¬ 
rience,  like  that  experience  through 
whose  stages  we  ourselves  must 
largely  pass.  In  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  alike  we  have  the 
opportunity,  too,  of  sharing  in  no 
small  measure  in  the  best  insights 
of  the  greatest  spiritual  seers  that 
the  world  has  known. 

But  above  all,  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  the  Bible  brings  us  back  into 
the  concrete  presence  of  the  histor¬ 
ical  Christ ,  and  to  the  sense  of  his 
practical  lordship.  No  generation 
the  world  has  ever  seen  has  wit¬ 
nessed  such  study  of  his  life  as  has 
this  generation  of  ours.  It  is  not 
an  accident  that  every  life  of  Christ 
worth  reading,  outside  the  Gospels, 
has  been  written  since  the  year  1835. 


14  the  good  new  times 

To  our  time,  too,  belongs  the  whole 
rise  of  the  great  science  of  biblical 
theology,  to  our  time  the  most 
searching  studies  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  Men  have  been  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  life  and  spirit 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  as  never  be¬ 
fore,  and  it  is  a  reasonable  thing  to 
expect  the  best  Christian  preaching, 
and  the  best  Christian  living  the 
world  has  ever  seen  to  be  just 
ahead  of  us,  not  behind  us.  For, 
in  spite  of  all  the  questions  that  are 
raised,  the  practical  lordship  of 
Christ  is  becoming  daily  more  mani¬ 
fest;  never  before  did  his  spirit 
rule  so  truly  in  industry,  in  com¬ 
merce,  in  politics  national  and  in¬ 
ternational.  And  while  we  are  still 
only  at  the  beginning  of  that  com¬ 
plete  lordship  that  belongs  to  him, 


OUR  UNIQUE  NEED  OF  CHRIST  15 

we  have  the  greatest  reasons  for 
faith  and  hope.  And  it  is  through 
the  witness  of  these  earliest  disci¬ 
ples,  who  “beheld  his  glory,”  that 
there  is  given  to  us  this  priceless 
vision  “of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ.” 


V 

And  it  especially  concerns  us  men 
of  the  twentieth  century  to  re¬ 
member  that  it  is  exactly  we  who , 
above  all ,  need  Christ  for  any  sure 
way  to  God.  For  this  generation 
has  awakened  to  scientific  and 
moral  self-consciousness  to  an  ex¬ 
tent  never  before  true.  Just  be¬ 
cause  there  is  this  scientific  con¬ 
sciousness  on  the  one  hand,  and 
this  deeper  moral  consciousness  on 


*6  CLOSED  WAYS 

the  other,  many  of  the  older  ways 
into  the  religious  life  are  for  us 
closed.  I  do  not  say  that  the  New 
Hollander  or  the  African  has  had 
no  genuine  religious  experience. 
I  do  not  say  that  any  race  has  been 
without  some  genuine  relation  to 
God.  But  I  do  say  that  for  us  men 
of  the  twentieth  century  the  ways 
by  which  most  of  them  came  into 
their  religious  experience  are  for 
us  closed  ways.  The  facts  that  were 
sufficient  for  them  are  not  sufficient 
for  us.  If  we  are  to  find  our  way 
into  assured  personal  relation  to 
God,  it  must  be  by  way  of  a  per¬ 
son  able  to  call  out  absolute  trust. 
For,  in  Herrmann’s  language, 
“the  childlike  spirit  can  only 
arise  within  us  when  our  experience 
is  the  same  as  a  child’s;  in  other 


ASSURED  RELATION  *7 

words,  when  we  meet  with  a  per¬ 
sonal  life  which  compels  us  to 
trust  it  without  reserve.  Only  the 
person  of  Jesus  can  arouse  such 
trust  in  a  man  who  has  awakened 
to  moral  self-consciousness.  If 
such  a  man  surrenders  himself  to 
anything  or  anyone  else,  he  throws 
away  not  only  his  trust  but  him- 
self.,,  We  need  for  assured  relation 
to  God  a  fact  so  great  that  in  it 
we  can  unmistakably  find  God, 
and  he  find  us — a  fact  great  enough 
to  bring  us  renewed  conviction  of 
the  certainty  of  moral  ideals,  of  the 
spiritual  world,  of  the  living  God. 
And  it  is  this  conviction  that  the  per¬ 
sonality  of  Jesus  is  able  to  bring  us, 
with  a  certainty  and  strength  that 
no  other  fact  or  person  can  ap¬ 
proach;  so  that  we  can  say  with 


a9  TO  STAY  IN  HIS  PRESENCE 

Harnack,  “When  God  and  every¬ 
thing  that  is  sacred  threaten  to  dis¬ 
appear  in  darkness,  or  our  doom 
is  pronounced;  when  the  mighty 
forces  of  inexorable  nature  seem  to 
overwhelm  us,  and  the  bounds  of 
good  and  evil  to  dissolve;  when, 
weak  and  weary,  we  despair  of 
finding  God  at  all  in  this  dismal 
world — it  is  then  that  the  personal¬ 
ity  of  Christ  may  save  us.” 

The  man  of  the  modern  age, 
thus,  needs  Christ  in  preeminent 
degree.  But  we  are  put  face  to  face 
with  the  personality  of  Jesus  only 
through  the  New  Testament  as  the 
witness  of  his  first  disciples.  The 
greatest  of  all  our  tasks,  therefore, 
becomes  at  the  same  time  our  su¬ 
preme  opportunity — to  stay  in  his 
presence ,  and  to  let  him  make  his 


QUICKENED  INTO  LIFE  a9 

legitimate  impression  upon  us.  All 
values  of  every  kind  go  back  ulti¬ 
mately  to  the  riches  of  some  per¬ 
sonal  life,  and  there  are  no  riches 
like  those  of  the  world’s  greatest 
personalities;  above  all,  like  the 
unsearchable  riches  of  Christ. 

“Then  stand  before  that  fact,  that  Life 
and  Death, 

Stay  there  at  gaze,  till  it  dispart, 
dispread. 

As  tho  a  star  should  open  out,  all 
sides. 

Grow  the  world  on  you,  as  it  is  my 
world.” 

The  Bible,  thus,  becomes  our 
great  way  to  character,  and  in¬ 
fluence,  and  happiness.  In  touch 
with  its  great  personalities,  we  are 
quickened  into  life,  as  we  feel  the 
impress  of  their  character,  and 
share  their  witness.  In  such  study, 


30  CHRIST  THE  SOURCE 

too,,  the  qualities  of  effective  witness 
are  produced  and  deepened  in  us. 
It  is  thus  that  we  come  into  life;  for 
it  is  literally  true  to  say  of  many  a 
man  who  feels  deeply  the  modern 
spirit  and  yet  who  has  stayed  per¬ 
sistently  in  the  presence  of  Christ, 
that  in  all  the  higher  ranges  of  his 
life  he  lives  by  Christ;  all  the 
sources  of  his  life  are  in  Christ. 

In  such  considerations  as  these 
lies  the  great  reason  for  Bible 
study,  for  insistence  on  such  study, 
as  the  supreme  way  into  life’s 
values. 


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